This invention relates to a system for providing accelerated access to a first data network via a second data network where the second data network is a packet switched network or other type of network which is designed to transmit bursty data. In particular this invention relates to a system for providing accelerated access to the Internet or an internal company run Intranet via a wireless telecommunications network.
Fixed wireless access systems are currently employed for local wireless telecommunication networks, such as the IONICA system. Known systems comprise radio transceivers which are located at subscriber""s premises. The radio transceivers at the subscribers premises communicate by radio link with a base station, which provides cellular coverage over, for example, a 5 km radius in urban environments. A typical base station will support 500-2000 subscribers. Each base station is connected to a standard PSTN switch via a conventional transmission link/network. Thus subscribers are connected to a national telecommunications network by radio link using a wireless telecommunication network in place of the more traditional method of copper cable. Fixed wireless access systems are capable of delivering a wide range of access services from POTS (public operator telephone service), ISDN (integrated services digital network) to broadband data.
Subscribers having a computing device, such as a PC connected via a modem to a wireless telecommunication network, such as the fixed wireless access system described above may wish to access data networks, such as the Internet.
Referring to FIG. 1, when a request for a link to the Internet (2) is made at the subscriber""s PC (4), the signal generated is communicated via the PC""s modem (6) to a decoder (8), where it is encoded and then transmitted over a wireless telecommunications network by the subscriber unit""s antenna (10) to the associated antenna (12) of a base station (14xe2x80x94indicated by dotted lines) which serves the subscriber unit (16xe2x80x94indicated by dotted lines). At the base station the signal is decoded by a decoder (18) and then transmitted in the conventional way via a standard circuit switched PSTN system (20) to the Internet (2). Similarly, when information is received from the Internet, it is transmitted over the PSTN system to the relevant base station (14) where it is encoded by decoder (18) and transmitted over the network by the base station antenna (12) to the antenna (10) at the subscriber""s premises. The information is then decoded at the subscriber""s premises by the decoder (8) and transmitted to the PC (4) via the PC""s modem (6).
The wireless telecommunications network described above is a packet switched data network and as such is designed to carry intermittently transmitted packets of information (ie bursty data) from a particular subscriber to its associated base station and vice versa, as opposed to a continuous stream of information. For example, during Internet browsing when a subscriber""s PC requests the next link or moves to another site on the Internet, this is transmitted between the subscriber""s antenna and the base station antenna as one or more discrete packets of high bandwidth signal. There is then likely to be a long gap until the user requests a further link. Similarly, when an Internet page is downloaded onto the subscriber""s PC from the Internet, the information associated with that page is transmitted between the base station antenna and the subscriber unit""s antenna as one, or more likely a plurality, of packets of high bandwidth signal. Again, there is then likely to be a long gap, while the user assesses the current page until a next requested page is downloaded. For example, during normal browsing of the Internet a subscriber""s modem may be idle up to 90% of the time and so information would be transmitted between the subscriber unit""s antenna and a base station antenna only 10% of the time during which the user is browsing.
Recently, so called Internet accelerators or accelerated access systems have become very popular, for example the xe2x80x9cPeakJetxe2x80x9d package which is available from The PeakSoft Corporation and the xe2x80x9cNet Acceleratorxe2x80x9d package which is available from IMSI. These packages operate on a computing device, such as a PC, and speed up or accelerate access to Internet pages by scanning ahead when, during browsing, a user""s modem is idle and downloading onto the user""s PC those pages and associated graphics which are linked to the page currently being displayed on the PC screen and being read by the user. The downloaded links are then stored as a cache (24xe2x80x94see FIG. 1) in the PC""s (4) hard disk. When the user, finishes reading the current page and requests a link to a linked Internet page, it should appear on the PC screen immediately because it should already stored in the cache (24) in the PC""s hard disk. That is provided that the Internet accelerator has had time to download that particular linked page into the cache during previous idle time.
Since many unused linked pages are downloaded, the modem (6) is working almost continuously. Inevitably, many of the pages loaded by the Internet accelerator into the cache (24) will not be requested by a user and so will have to be discarded later.
The Internet accelerated access packages described above have an intelligent caching system which learns from the PC user""s Internet browsing activities, those Internet pages or sites the user accesses most frequently. Then when the modem is idle the Internet accelerating system will access these most frequently accessed pages and update the cache with recent changes which have been made to them. Therefore, when a user next requests to access one of the most frequently used pages, the up to date page is displayed on the PC screen almost immediately and less time is spent waiting for the page to be accessed from the Internet by the browser. Even if the most frequently used page has not yet been updated and so is not completely up to date, all that the Internet acceleration package needs to request is a relatively small amount of information required to update the page, which will take less time to be downloaded from the Internet onto the PC than the entire page.
When a subscriber to a wireless telecommunication network, as shown in FIG. 1, uses an Internet accelerator, the PC""s modem (6) will be operating almost constantly and so the subscriber unit""s antenna (10) will be transmitting and/or receiving almost continually. Similarly, the base station antenna (12) will be transmitting and/or receiving to/from the subscriber unit almost continuously. This is not consistent with the fact that such wireless telecommunication networks are packet switched networks and as such are designed to carry intermittently transmitted packets of information to and from a subscriber. Although it may not be too much of a problem for a circuit switched network (eg. PSTN), the continual transmission of data packets to and from a subscriber can be very harmful to the performance of a packet switched network where data has been assumed to be very xe2x80x9cburstyxe2x80x9d. In a wireless telecommunication network for carrying data or a mix of voice and data, Internet accelerated access systems can cause serious congestion.
Although the above example relates to accessing the Internet using an Internet accelerated access package via a wireless telecommunication network, it will be apparent that similar problems will be experienced when trying to access a first data network, using a network accelerated access package which scans ahead and downloads network sites before they are requested, via a second data network where the second data network is a packet switched network or other type of network which is designed to transmit bursty data.
The present invention seeks to provide an accelerated access system which overcomes or at least mitigates one or more of the problems noted above.
The present invention further seeks to achieve a high speed of access to a first data network, in particular the Internet, which is comparable to that provided by known accelerator packages in the situation where a user is connected to the first data network via a second packet switched or other type of bursty data network, in particular a wireless telecommunication network, while preventing congestion of the second data network.
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided an accelerated access system for a computing device, which computing device is connected to a first data network via a second data network, the system comprising a server for downloading data from the first data network before that data has been requested by a user of the computing device and a cache for storing the downloaded data, wherein the system is located between the first data network and the second data network.
Only some of the information which is downloaded by the server from the first data network will subsequently be requested by a user of the computing device during interrogation of the first data network. By locating the accelerated access system between the first data network and the second data network it is not necessary to transmit all the data downloaded by the server over the second data network. Instead only that information requested by a user of the computing device is transmitted over the second data network at high speed from the cache. This prevents the second data network from becoming congested while still providing a high speed of access to the first data network.
The first data network may be the Internet or an internal company run Intranet and the second data network may be a wireless telecommunication network.
According to a second embodiment of the present invention there is provided an accelerated access system for a computing device, which computing device is connected to a first data network via a second data network, the system comprising a server for downloading data from the first data network before that data has been requested by a user of the computing device and a cache for storing the downloaded data, wherein the system is located remotely from the computing device such that signals transmitted between the computing device and the server are transmitted over the second data network.
Again the first data network may be the Internet or an internal company run Intranet and the second data network may be a local wireless telecommunication network.
According to a third embodiment of the present invention there is provided an accelerated access system for a computing device, which computing device is connected to a subscriber unit of a wireless telecommunication network and the subscriber unit is in radio communication with a base station of the wireless telecommunication network, the system comprising a server for downloading data from a first data network before that data has been requested by a user of the computing device and a cache for storing the downloaded data, wherein the system is co-located with the base station.
The first data network may be the Internet or an internal company run Intranet.
At any time during interrogation or browsing of the first data network or the Internet by a user of the computing device preferably the server is set up to download data linked to a network site of the first data network or an Internet site being displayed at that time by the computing device for storage in the cache.
Preferably, the server monitors the requests for data from the first data network or the Internet made by its users and automatically downloads the most frequently requested data for storage in the cache. The server can then be arranged to automatically update the most frequently requested data. Alternatively, the server may update the most frequently requested data when a user requests that data.
The system may be set up to support a plurality of computing devices which are all linked to the first data network via the second data network.